Sunday, December 21, 2014

Emirates Rome to Dubai to Colombo to Singapore, with Airport Hotel stay at Dubai International

In these videos, I show you our journey from Rome to Singapore. We fly from Rome to Dubai, stay some hours at the Airport Hotel, before an onward flight from Dubai to Singapore, via Colombo.

Video 1 - Rome to Dubai

Video 2 - Dubai to Singapore via Colombo

Lines at the Economy Class boarding, even before boarding commenced.

My seat for this flight was 46H, in the front most section of the Economy Class cabin. The aircraft interiors looked and felt very new. Leg room was good.

The aircraft interiors looked and felt very new. Leg room was good.
The flight itself was smooth and departed on time. Since the air traffic at Rome was so light, there was no issue of congestion on the ground.
In the air, as this was a day flight, most passengers did not sleep. The inflight entertainment system was superb, as usual.

Many movies to watch. I also like the cameras on the IFE system very much. This is a feature that is not available on SQ. My kids got no sleep during this flight. They either played games or watched movies for the entire time.
The main meal served not too long after take-off was dinner. This was the menu.

This was what one of the rooms looked like.
Dubai to Colombo to Singapore
The plane would be the Boeing 777-300ER
This was another Boeing 777-300ER plane at the next gate.

This was our first B-777 on Emirates as all the earlier flights were on their A380s. Our seats were right at the rear, where the plane fuselage narrowed and the seats were in a 2-4-2 configuration. I was at Seat 48B

The flight time from Dubai to Colombo was just under 4 hours. Smooth flight with good food and service on board. Breakfast was served on this leg. I chose the Chicken Curry option and it came with Roti Pol, or a thicker form of Roti Prata (plain). It tasted very good.

I watched the scenery as we landed into Colombo. Thick vegetation. Temperature on the ground was 30 deg C. I have never been to Colombo but that place has a long history too, due to its strategic location at the cross roads of trade routes between East and West.

When the plane landed, we were informed by the cabin crew that passengers heading to Singapore could not get off the plane. This was a strict rule with no exceptions. I noticed that about half the plane alighted, which means half of us from Dubai had our final destination as Singapore.

The transit on the ground was approximately 1hr 30 minutes. Wow, we were going to be stuck on the plane for 90 minutes. Oh well, let's make the best of it. The good thing was that the In Flight Entertainment system was turned on all the way. Many passengers continued to watch movies but I was certainly getting restless.So what happened during the 1.5 hours?

Ground Crew Came Onboard Preparing Seats
Ground crew came on board to clear the rubbish and prepare the cabin for the next flight. It was interesting to have a half-full plane watching the ground crew work, but the ground crew looked like they were used to being watched. As mentioned earlier, only half the plane alighted. The rest of the passengers stayed onboard and we were not allowed to get off.

Rear Door Opened - Catering Activity
As I was seated near the rear of the plane, I heard a lot of activity going on, so I went behind to take a look. The rear aircraft door was opened and a catering truck had pulled up to the plane.

That made sense. The plane was taking on fresh supplies for the next flight as well as older trolleys were taken off. Since I had nothing better to do, I watched the ground crew do their work.

Cabin Crew ID cabin bags
Shortly after, there was an announcement that cabin crew was to begin identifying cabin buggage. Huh? Oh, the idea was to positively ID all overhead cabin baggage to make sure that all remaining baggage on board belonged to passengers that were still on board. That made sense, from a security perspective. This was done very efficiently.

A short while after, the plane began boarding new passengers. The flight was full. Every seat was taken. Emirates certainly has good business. The doors closed and we were on our way again, this time to Singapore. Flight time was 3 hours and 30 minutes.

Again, it was a very smooth flight. The lunch served was very good too! I had some chicken with fried rice. My kid had spaghetti plus lots of stuff to eat like Kit Kat. The food came onboard in Colombo, so the quality of catering was pretty good too.

Overall, it was a good flight. The cabin crew had to work doubly hard and I didn't envy them. They had to do a lot of work and the total flight time was 9.5 hours (Dubai to Singapore,including Colombo). The cabin crew were cheerful and professional throughout. Kudos to the multi-national Emirates crew!

We landed in Singapore on time. Overall, the time from Dubai to Singapore took 9 hour 30 minutes, compared to about 7 hours if you flew direct and non-stop (Singapore to Dubai).

1 comment
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